


Coldhearted

by PitViperOfDoom



Series: Spin, Spider, Spin [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical spiders, Fairy Tale Curses, Gen, Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 06:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30067860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitViperOfDoom/pseuds/PitViperOfDoom
Summary: “If you have no other choice, then you might ask the spiders. If a cure for your mother exists, then they will know what it is.”Martin’s heart sinks. He’s heard the stories; spiders spin their webs across the land, and they can sense all that happens on them. Which is all very well, but people who try to bargain with spiders tend to wind up tangled in the very same threads if they aren’t careful.
Series: Spin, Spider, Spin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858633
Comments: 19
Kudos: 122





	Coldhearted

**Author's Note:**

> So I meant to have this ready for TMA Fantasy Week Day 6, for the "Curse" prompt. Better late than never!
> 
> Warnings: Emotional abuse, low self-esteem and negative self-talk, loss of a parental figure, brief drowning sequence, typical Lonely content, non-graphic body horror, emotional numbness.

It begins, as these things often do, with a dutiful son.

His childhood is pleasant by all accounts, in the early years before his father’s departure. He is raised on smiles and sunlight and kind voices, and his love is accepted as the gift that it is.

But the happy times end, as happy times are wont to do when they come at the beginning of a story. When his father leaves, he takes all the love in his mother’s broken heart with him. The happy home they once shared grows dim. Martin grows up in the cold, chasing after distant memories of a father who left him behind, and a mother who seems to want him less and less with each passing year. Gradually their money runs low, his mother turns bitter and sickly, and it falls to Martin to shoulder their burdens himself, far too early.

But shoulder them he does. He works, and learns, and smiles through his mother’s harshness at his mistakes. He makes her tea, and when she does not drink it, he carefully watches the way she makes it herself, and copies the steps perfectly. When she still does not drink it, he mourns the failure and makes it anyway, in the hopes that at least the cup will warm her hands and the smell will bring her comfort.

His complaints are rare. He does not leave his home behind to seek happiness elsewhere, though he longs to, and his mother tests his resolve every day. He is, after all, a dutiful son.

But duty and loyalty alone can neither turn back time nor heal the body. Not long after Martin’s seventeenth birthday, his mother falls desperately ill. She has always been sickly, and Martin has nursed her through many a chill and fever, but now he finds her illness too much for his limited skill.

He consults every healer and physician he can find. They offer treatments to alleviate her symptoms, to lessen her pain and discomfort through it, but no one can cure her. No one can even slow the progress of the illness, only make her comfortable as her health dwindles further.

Treacherous relief tastes sour in the back of Martin’s throat, and he hates the part of himself that longs for freedom. He quiets it, reminds himself that this is the woman who raised him, who kept a roof over his head and food in his belly in the years before he was old enough to provide for her instead. It is only fair that he do everything in his power to bring her ease and contentment in her later years.

He is, after all, a dutiful son.

Martin casts his net wider, searching for better treatment if a cure is too much to ask for. When he finally grows desperate, he vents his troubles to Hannah, who makes medicine and cares for the sick in his own town. His mother’s illness has grown far beyond her knowledge, but she is a kind woman. Martin works for her from time to time, gathering herbs and ingredients when her stores run low, and as always she is quick to lend a sympathetic ear.

“If you have no other choice, then you might ask the spiders,” she tells him, after a moment’s hesitation. “If a cure for your mother exists, then they will know what it is.”

Martin’s heart sinks. He’s heard the stories; spiders spin their webs across the land, and they can sense all that happens on them. Which is all very well, but people who try to bargain with spiders tend to wind up tangled in the very same threads if they aren’t careful.

“Your mother’s sickness is beyond any mortal power to heal.” Martin can hear the apology in her voice. “Seek out Annabelle. She will set a price, but she will help you if you pay it.”

* * *

Martin knows who Annabelle is. Everyone knows who Annabelle is, and a few even know that she is a spider. Those who do not know, suspect. When Martin ventures deep into the woods to find her home, he is one of the latter. After he knocks and is admitted, he becomes one of the former.

It is easy enough to see, as plain as the nose on Martin’s face or the extra six eyes on Annabelle’s. Her hair is white and wispy, and it takes him a moment to realize that it is not hair at all, but thick spider-silk growing from her head. Her fingers dance across the loom she sits at, weaving it into a small tapestry of silver.

“Step into my parlor,” she says with a smile. “It’s been so long since I had a guest for tea.”

A polished tea tray sits on the table beside her, laden with a full pot and a plate of tiny cakes. There are two cups, two saucers, and enough refreshments to accommodate a guest. Martin had told no one that he was coming today, not even Hannah whose advice first sent him.

But he knows his manners, spider or not. He takes a cup, and thanks Annabelle politely when she extends a hand to stir in a spoonful of honey. For a moment he has to blink, as the mirage of extra limbs overcomes him. When his vision clears, the image is gone, and Annabelle Cane sits before him with two arms, two legs, and a serene smile. Her black eyes are as polished as her manners.

“What can I do for you?” she asks.

“My mother is sick,” Martin explains, steadying the cup and saucer in his hands. “I was told that you might know the cure. That you know everything that happens in your web. I’m willing to repay you, but I don’t—we don’t have much money, these days.”

“Perfectly alright. I don’t have much use for money.” The weaving before her is unfinished, with no clear picture among the loose threads. Lines swirl and wind and cross each other in spiraling designs, and Martin can’t look at it for long without getting lost in the tangled paths. He averts his eyes, and Annabelle’s smile widens with amusement. He isn’t much older than he is, but her shining eyes dance with knowledge that he cannot grasp.

“I can heal your mother’s sickness,” she says, and his heart tentatively lifts. “But I will need three things.”

Martin nods, hopeful. He’s gathered medicinal ingredients before. He knows these woods and the things that grow in them. Perhaps, if he brings her what she needs instead of her fetching them herself, the price she asks will be lower.

“South of here lies a witch’s wood, where Mother’s webs cannot reach,” she tells him. “The witch’s child spins fine thread. I will need a spool of it.”

Before her, a picture begin to coalesce in the threads. Martin recognizes it from maps he’s seen in the town library, from paths he’s walked since he was small. It’s his forest, with a single strand of a path winding from the town where he lives to the lands in the south.

“Further south lies the Shrouded Wood,” Annabelle continues. “Follow the river to the lake at its heart, and fetch me the waters of the Dark.”

The path unfolds in the weaving, and the threads turn black as they wind into the shape of the Wood in question.

“Travel far enough, and you will reach the southern sea,” said Annabelle. “Follow the shoreline until you’ve left every village behind, and the fog is so thick that it muffles even your own voice. Bring me the mists of the Forsaken.”

She weaves the shape of the shoreline, the outline of waves beyond it and the fog that shrouds the coast. Her work finished, she removes the woven map from her loom and presents it to him. “Bring me these three things, and I can cure your mother’s illness.”

Martin waits in silence for her to continue, to tell him what the price of her help will be. But she smiles and says nothing, so he takes the map and offers his wary thanks.

The feeling of tiny legs crawling over his skin follows him all the way home.

* * *

He packs what he needs, and what he can carry, and he talks to Hannah before his departure. He pays her as much as he can spare, and she wishes him well and adds a few necessities to his meager supplies. Among them, nestled deep in his pack, are two empty flasks.

Before he leaves, Martin brings his mother tea one last time. She doesn’t look at him when he enters the room, nor does she glance at the tea he places at her side.

“I’ll be gone for a while,” he tells her gently. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay, but I think I’ve found a cure for you, and I have to try.” He watches her face, searching for—something. A flicker of hope, of interest, anything. What he sees is a slight furrow in her brow, her usual response to his attempts at small talk. “But I’m not leaving you alone. Hannah said she’ll look after you until I get back. And don’t worry about paying her, I already have. With what I earned from working in town, don’t worry. You’ll be alright. She’ll take good care of you.”

“How long?” his mother asks. Martin jumps at the sound of her voice.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he answers. “A few weeks, maybe. I’m… I have to go all the way down to the sea.”

All at once, the furrow in her brow smooths, and Martin glimpses the hope and interest he’s been searching for in her lined face. “A cure?” she asks.

“Yes. I—yes.” No need to mention the spiders. She’s never been fond of them.

“Well, get on, then.” She summons enough strength to wave him toward the door, nearly knocking over the tea he left within her reach. “It’s a long way to the sea. You may as well get started.”

“O-of course. I’ll see you soon.” It’s the most she’s said to him in one sitting since she took ill. Full of hope, Martin leans down to kiss her goodbye, only to freeze when she flinches at the hand on her shoulder and turns her head away. He steps back sheepishly, giving her the space he knows she wants. “Well, I’m off then.” His hand wrings at his side as he memorizes the coarse wool of her shawl.

“I love you,” he tells her as he leaves. He does not expect an answer. He does not receive one.

* * *

Stepping beyond the edge of the familiar forest, Martin imagines that the world beyond looks very different from his birthplace. Whether it truly is different, or simply feels that way when he knows that he is the farthest from home he has ever been, Martin cannot be sure.

But it matches the woven map that Annabelle gave him, and the path ahead is clear, so he travels onward to the south, over hills and meadows, through villages and towns and forests, until at last the witch’s woods lie before him.

He isn’t sure what he expects of it. Somewhere deeper, darker, wilder even—though regular woods can be deep and dark and wild without hiding a witch in them. Either way, what he finds is a fairly normal forest. Birds sing, sunlight filters through the trees, and the wind smells of green and growing things. It’s a lovely forest not unlike the one he first left, for all that the map in his hands marks it as the domain of a witch.

Martin is almost surprised when he comes upon a town. It’s not exactly bustling, but there are people working and children playing in the streets and a dearth of fearful looks and boarded-up windows, so Martin takes it as a good sign.

It takes a few minutes for him to gather enough courage to ask about the witch, and luckily all he gets in return is a pinched look before the woman answers.

“There’s a river just west of here—more of a stream, really. Follow the water, and you’ll find her if she wants to be found.”

“Thank you,” he says.

The woman scowls. “On your head be it. She keeps a cursed child in her house, and no one’s quite sure what she feeds it.”

His cautious optimism crumbles, but he thanks her again and hurries away. He’d known the witch had a child, because Annabelle said so. The curse is new. It would have been nice to know about it before he set out.

Before he leaves the town, he searches the town and finds some nice teas for sale in one of the shops. He buys a box of his favorite and tucks it into his bag; it isn’t much, but it’s better than no gift at all. After the woman’s warning, he needs all the reassurance he can find.

Steeling himself, Martin finds his way to the western edge of the town. In the woods beyond, he finds the stream and follows it. He hopes that the witch is feeling welcoming today.

Almost a mile out from the town, he finds the first sign. A length of silver twine hangs from a tree. When Martin touches it, he finds it as smooth as liquid between his fingers.

The breeze sweeps past him, and he smells smoke. The scent is stale; if there was a fire, then it burned at least a day ago. On an impulse, he breaks from the stream and follows the smell instead.

Eventually, it leads him to a cottage nestled in the woods, in a clearing just big enough to allow for a garden and a small flock of chickens. The curtains are drawn, and in the daylight Martin cannot tell if there are lights within. Warnings of cursed children circle through his head as he braces himself and knocks before he can lose his nerve.

No answer, of course.

He makes a quick circuit of the house, careful to avoid treading on the plants, but finds no one. He ventures further out, circling the area until he hears the rush of water again, and he follows the sound until he finds the stream, and the person sitting on the bank.

He doesn’t look much like a witch, Martin thinks. He is small and slight, and looks younger than Martin, though Martin has always been big for his age. His hair is inexpertly cropped close to his head, uneven in some places and messy overall. He sits with his back to Martin, knees drawn up to his chest, and watches the water flow past. Freshly-picked flowers decorate the bank, and a single empty glass jar sits at his side.

Martin hovers uncertainly at a respectful distance before cautiously clearing his throat. “Excuse me?”

The young man turns his head, but not enough to look at him. Martin can’t get a good view of his face, but he knows sorrow when he sees it. Slowly he steps forward and lowers himself to sit beside him.

“Are you alright?” Martin asks. A single nod is all he gets for an answer. “Well, I’m—My name’s Martin, and I’m looking for a witch. I think I found her house back there, but no one was home. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

At this, the stranger curls further in on himself. One hand comes to rest on the empty jar and draws it closer.

“She died.” His voice is quiet, but not quiet enough for the water to drown it.

From only two words, Martin learns quite a lot.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says automatically, first because that’s what you’re supposed to say when someone announces a death in the family, and second because he really is sorry. It’s hard not to feel sorry when someone’s curled up all alone by a river. “You’re—you’re her child, then?”

A shrug. “I suppose. She only had me.”

He doesn’t look very cursed, Martin thinks. Just very sad.

“I didn’t know what she wanted, after,” the witch’s child says. “She never told me. I hope she doesn’t mind me doing what they did for my parents. I probably remembered things wrong.”

“I don’t think she’d mind,” Martin offers. “The flowers are nice.”

“Thank you.” Even now, he still won’t look at Martin. “What did you want with her?”

The question makes Martin feel wretched. Here he is, barging in on someone else’s grief. It’s a miracle he hasn’t been chased off or snapped at. “It can wait. I brought tea—would you like some?” He remembers the woman’s comment about what a cursed child eats, and forcibly shoves the thought down where it belongs.

The other boy’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. He nods, then takes up the jar and rinses it out in the stream. Martin tries to get a better glimpse of his face, but he turns his head away too quickly.

The inside of the cottage is cluttered and neatened in equal measure, with books on shelves and sitting open on tables alongside dried plants and stones, bits and bobs that Martin can’t identify. It looks a little more witchy on the inside than the outside.

Martin’s eyes linger on the spinning wheel in the corner, and on the baskets of undyed thread.

Tea first. There’s time for that later.

Martin isn’t sure where the witch kept her tea things, or how his new acquaintance takes his. But he hunts down the necessities with careful questions, and brews it like he always does. With a cup in either hand, he sits at the little table across from the witch’s child and carefully slides one over. Slender fingers wrap around it and bring it to the stranger’s lips, and Martin catches the appreciative hum when it comes out.

“Thank you,” the witch’s child says.

“I’m sorry about your…” He hesitates. He’d mentioned parents, hadn’t he? “Your guardian.”

Another nod. “Not even witches live forever.” His fidgeting hands still. “I suppose this makes me the witch, now.”

“You’re a witch, too?”

“Yes.” He says it with a strange, quiet certainty, as if the question and its answer mean more to him than they do to Martin. “Did you need her help? I can try.”

“Sort of,” Martin replies. “Actually, I think it already _was_ you that I needed help from.” At the witch’s frown, he explains. “My mother is sick. I went to another—well, she wasn’t a witch, exactly—but I went to someone for help, and she asked me to bring three things for the cure. Do you spin?”

The question seems to surprise him, because he nearly raises his head to look at Martin before he remembers himself and keeps his eyes down. “I do,” he says cautiously.

“I need a spool of your thread,” Martin tells him. “I’m willing to buy it from you, if you want.”

The witch frowns. “My threads don’t heal,” he says. “I mean, if you wanted to stitch a wound—but they won’t do anything for sickness. Who told you they would?”

“A… a spider,” Martin admitted. “She said her name was Annabelle.”

Across the table, the witch goes still. “Annabelle? What does Annabelle want with my thread?”

“I-I don’t know,” Martin says. “It’s the first thing she told me to find, when I asked her how to cure my mother’s sickness.” The witch doesn’t answer right away. “Do you know her? Annabelle?”

Slender fingers tighten around his cup. “Yes,” the witch says softly.

“ Who is she to you?”

The silence is long, long enough for steam to stop rising from their cups. After a while, Martin doubts that he’s going to answer at all. Then—

“She liked to call herself my sister,” the witch answers, and at last he lifts his eyes to Martin’s.

There may be only two of them, but Martin now knows a spider’s eyes when he sees them.

“ Wait—you’re—but I don’t understand.” Martin stares at him until the witch looks away again. “Annabelle said the webs didn’t reach these woods.”

“They don’t,” the witch replies. “Gran made sure of that. My parents wanted a child, and the spiders gave me to them. But when the Mother wanted me back, I didn’t want to go. So Gran took me in and taught me. These were her woods, and she raised me so that they’d become mine, eventually.”

Martin worries at his lip. “If I give  a spider your thread, will the webs be able to reach you?”

The witch blinks at him, confused. “No. Why do you ask?”

“If you’re trying to hide from—from the Mother.” The word sits oddly on his tongue. He knows what it means, and he’s used it a thousand times before, but now he can’t shake the feeling that he’s saying it wrong somehow. “I don’t want to give them a way to reach you.”

For a moment, the witch looks mystified, though he doesn’t say why.  “ Well, you don’t need to worry about that ,”  he says after a moment , and puts his cup down to rise from his chair. “If anything, if  Annabelle has my thread,  _I_ will be able to reach  _her_ .” He retrieves a spool from one of his baskets, and places it before Martin.

“Oh! Are you sure?”

“For the tea, and the kindness,” the witch says. “And for continuing to be kind, even after you saw my eyes.”

“Thank you,” Martin says softly. “I won’t forget this.”

The witch nods distractedly, and Martin can’t blame him; he knows that his own promises aren’t worth much, that a favor from him is a sad payment to offer. “What else did she ask you to find?” the witch asks.

“The water of the Dark, from the Shrouded Wood,” Martin replies. “And the mists of the Forsaken from the southern coast.”

The witch’s face falls. “It won’t be easy. Not like this.” He nods to the spool of thread in Martin’s hands. “You could ask for this. With the Dark and the Forsaken, you can only take, and hope that they don’t take you first.”

Martin feels his heart sink with dread. “What do I do?”

“The Dark is a glutton for fear,” the witch tells him. “It will offer to eat yours until you have none left. It may be tempting to live without fear, but you have to tell it no.”

“I can do that,” Martin says, hiding his nervousness. “What about the Forsaken?”

“If you aren’t careful, the mists will swallow you whole,” the witch warns. “There is nothing within them but empty cold and loneliness, but they will lie to you to convince you to stay. If you want to find your way out, then you need to remember why you’re there.” He hesitates. “Do you love your mother?”

“Yes,” Martin answers readily. He does love her. She is his mother, and he is a dutiful son.

“Does she love you?”

“Yes,” Martin answers again. She is stubborn sometimes, and unhappy most of the time, and the two clash whenever the pain gets to be too much. But she loves him. He knows she does. Maybe if he does this for her, she will finally feel well enough to show it.

The witch is nodding again, unaware of his thoughts. “Think of her, then,” he says. “When the mists are at their thickest, and you can no longer remember which way you came. It will guide you out again.” His eyes settle on Martin’s again, but not for very long. “Don’t forget.”

“I’ll remember,” Martin replies. The thread in his hands is soft like eiderdown, so soft he can barely feel it at all. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

The witch’s face gives way to grief, just for a moment. He shuts his eyes and nods. “It’s getting late,” he says. “The woods are difficult to navigate in the dark. I have an extra bed that you can use, if you’d like to stop here for the night.”

Instinct tells Martin to refuse. He has never been wanted before, and that certainly isn’t going to change now that he’s intruded on a stranger’s grief. But if he gets lost now, before he even reaches the Shrouded Wood or the southern shores, then he may be too late to save his mother.

And so he swallows his shame and replaces it with gratitude, and takes the witch up on his offer with a smile.

* * *

The witch sees him off in the morning, pressing extra supplies into his hands before he leaves.

“Remember,” he says. “The shadows and the mists will both tempt you to stay. Don’t lose sight of why you’re there.”

“I won’t,” Martin assures him, a little overwhelmed. “I promise I’ll be careful…” His voice trails off.

“What is it?” the witch asks.

“I didn’t ask your name,” Martin replies, feeling abominably rude.

“Oh.” Something close to a smile flits across the witch’s face. “My mother named me Jonathan.” The word is different now, comfortable and natural in his mouth. This is the word as Martin knows it. “Call me Jon.”

“Alright.” In spite of himself, Martin smiles back. “Thank you, Jon. Maybe I’ll visit you again, when I come back this way.”

The witch meets his eyes again, just long enough for Martin to catch a glimpse of surprise and pleasure. “I’d like that,” he said. “I look forward to seeing you again, Martin.”

It is Martin’s turn to feel surprised, when he realizes with a quiet jolt that he believes him. And, when he allows himself a moment to listen to his own heart, he rather looks forward to seeing Jon again, as well.

Martin leaves Jon’s cottage and woods behind with a light heart. It cannot stay that way for the rest of his journey, but he enjoys it for as long as it lasts. The weight of his worries returns slowly as he journeys on, until he looks upon the edge of the Shrouded Wood with a growing dread.

Its name is fitting. Shadows wreathe the trees like storm clouds, hovering ever-present amid leaves and branches and open sky. The woods are bathed in darkness, and Martin feels the hairs rise on the back of his neck with each step he takes.

And then he steps beneath the trees, and the shock of fear is like being plunged into ice-cold water.

He is already primed to be afraid; forests are like that, when you walk through them alone. But here in the Shrouded Wood, it feels deliberate. The shadows lie in wait beneath every groaning tree, behind every clawing branch, waiting for Martin to steady himself again before they flicker just outside his line of sight. His heartbeat jolts and stalls every time, and he never knows peace. There is something in the forest, and it is hungry.

 _No,_ Martin realizes, the deeper he ventures into the sprawling dark. The forest itself is hungry. And he is walking into its mouth.

He does not stop, for all that he wants to, deep down in the place in his heart that once balked at walking alone into the cellar as a child. The woods are unfathomably deep and frightening, but if he stops now, then he might not continue. And if he does not continue, then his mother die, and he will finally, truly fail her in a way that can never be repaired.

Martin finds the river by sound, and only barely manages not to fall in. He follows it at a safe distance, mindful of the rushing waters and the bottom that he cannot see. The river might be knee-deep, or it maybe unfathomable. He is not eager to find out.

At the center of the wood, Martin finds the lake. It is a vast and sprawling thing, as still and smooth as a mirror but no less opaque than the river that led him here. It does not shimmer the way water should, because that would require light to exist in this place. Instead, it seems to draw light into itself, swallowing it down into its depths. Looking down into it, Martin can imagine anything—vast shapes moving beneath, beasts waiting just below for the glass-like surface to be disturbed—but he can see absolutely nothing. If something waits beneath, then he will simply have to find out.

He draws one of the flasks from his pack, kneels at the lake shore, and dips it into the water.

The Dark pulls him in.

He isn’t dragged, exactly. No grasping hands seize him and drag him below. He simply falls, as inevitable as the pull of the earth itself. The lake has no shallows. As soon as Martin is submerged, he realizes quickly that he cannot find the bottom, that perhaps there is no bottom to find at all.

Too soon, his lungs scream for air, but he can no longer find the shore, the ledge he fell from, or the surface. He hardly knows which way is up, because there is no sunlight to follow to the surface. He may as well be submerged in ink.

Martin is afraid—he has never been so afraid before. He will drown, and he will die for nothing, because his mother will follow him soon after.

But before he can panic enough to drown faster, the fear begins to drain away, like blood leaking into the water from an open wound. The dark waters press around him, hungry and pleased with the meal he promises.

Wouldn’t it be better, the Dark asks him eagerly. So much fear, so much pain, so much food. The Dark can devour it all, until there is nothing left. He can stop fearing, stop hurting, if only he feeds all his fears and worries to the all-encompassing dark. There is always room for more.

The offer tempts him for all of a moment before he thrashes, determination renewed. He cannot give up his fears, or his pains. He is here because he fears for his mother, and he fears losing her, and most of all he fears failing her. She has always told him that he would come to no good in the end, and if he lets go of his fear, then he will have no reason to do otherwise.

He is afraid because he loves her, because he cares. Because he is a dutiful son, and that means his greatest fear is failing at his duty.

His fear is _his_. Nothing and no one has any right to take it from him.

Martin breaks the surface with a gasp, choking on ink-like waters as he splashes to the shore and drags himself out of the water. It tries to pull him back in, but he digs his hands into black mud and drags himself forward.

The flask is full. Martin corks it tightly, gathers his things, and follows the river back out of the Shrouded Wood. When sunlight falls upon him again, he weeps—from joy or from his burning eyes, Martin can’t be sure. When he wipes his tears, his sleeve comes away stained with black.

He checks his bag again, just to be safe. Nestled in with his supplies is a spool of pale thread, and a bottle of ink-dark water. His heart slows with relief, and he looks onward to the south. He imagines that if he looks carefully enough, he can see water on the distant horizon. Before long he will reach the southern sea, and there he can gather the mists of the Forsaken. His task is nearly done.

Martin thinks of his mother again. She does not bring him comfort, but the memory of her face quickens his steps. He must not keep her waiting.

He is, after all, a dutiful son.

* * *

The southern shores are long, and cold, and until Martin takes his first step onto the gray sands, they are empty.

He looks left, and in the distance he sees the faint lights of a coastal village, half-hidden in the thin fog. To the right, his eyes follow the shoreline until the fog grows too thick to see any further.

Martin turns right and follows the beach.

He expects to walk for hours, perhaps even days before finding any trace of the Forsaken. Annabelle made it sound like a long journey when she gave him his instructions. But as he makes his way over sand and rock, as the susurrus of the waves against the shore fade into the background of his lonely little world, he finds the fog rolling in around him. It sweeps and dances around him in a pale imitation of the waves themselves, caressing him and cradling him. Welcoming him.

As the cold settles in, Martin thinks he might be nearly there. But then he turns with the curve of the shoreline, rounds the corner of a rocky outcropping, and finds a man standing in the sands ahead, just beyond the reach of the waves. He is tall, and broad, with a trimmed gray beard and a long wool coat that stirs gently in the wind, and he stands watching the sea with his hands locked behind his back. After a moment he turns, meets Martin’s eyes, and smiles.

Remembering Annabelle’s instructions, Martin offers a polite smile in return and keeps walking.

He travels in a straight line; he’s sure of it. He has to, when there is nowhere else to go but away from the shore entirely. And yet, as Martin continues walking, he finds himself passing the man again. This time he stands up on a high rock, as motionless as a lighthouse as he watches the endless sea.

He smiles at Martin again as he passes, and Martin walks on.

Martin continues to see the man, again and again, and each time it frustrates him, until at last he meets the stranger’s enigmatic smile with a glare before hurrying onward.

The next time Martin sees the man, he is not watching the sea any longer. Instead he is standing in Martin’s path, waiting for him.

“Hello.” His voice is soft and pleasant, further muted by the encircling mists. “You’re a very long way from home.”

Frustration wells up within Martin. He can’t get what he needs if he keeps running into this man. “Excuse me,” he says. “I need to be alone right now.”

“Aren’t you?”

Obviously he isn’t. If he were alone, then he wouldn’t be standing here talking to another person.

“You look a little lost,” the man continues. “Perhaps I can help.”

“I need to reach the Forsaken,” Martin tells him, and the man chuckles. The mists close in further, chilling Martin to the bone.

“You’re already here,” the man replies. “You’ve been here for quite a long while. Do you remember the way out?”

“Of course I do,” Martin says, and looks inland.

Instead of the treeline beyond the shore, he sees only gray. Gray mists, gray sands.

Martin draws out his second empty flask. He sweeps it once through the thick fog, and when he inspects it again he finds it full. When he corks it shut, the mists continue to swirl and shift in their glass prison. Moisture gathers on the flask’s cold surface.

He slips it into his bag alongside the first flask and the spool of thread, his tasks complete.

“I have to go now,” he says. The words feel odd on his tongue, as awkward as a foreign language. The man smiles indulgently, and does not stop him from walking away.

But no matter how far he walks into the emptiness, in the direction he thinks the trees must be, the fog never lifts and the sand never turns back into soil. The crash of waves on the shore never quiets, even when he looks back and realizes he can no longer see the ocean. He pulls out the map, but Annabelle did not weave him away out of the endless mist.

He is lost. It frightens him, but the fear is distant. He is cold, but he cannot summon the energy to shiver.

He slips the map back into his bag, and his fingers brush against softness—real softness, not the muted haze that fills his every sense. The witch had said that his own webs could reach Annabelle if she had his thread, and Martin wonders with a sudden wistfulness if that means the witch could reach him here.

Doubt washes the thought away. Even if the witch could reach him, why would he? Martin left him grieving; the last thing he’ll want is to worry about some stranger.

But the witch had warned him about this, that the Forsaken would draw him in as the Dark had. But he has to get out. He has to remember why he is here.

He has the three items—the thread, the water, the mist. He has to bring them to Annabelle so that she can save his mother.

He has to get out, for his mother.

 _But does he?_ a stray thought asks, a mere whisper in the back of his mind. To remember his mother is to remembers many things. The angle of her head as she turned from him before he left, and many times before. The way she draws back at his touch. Her silence in the face of his desperate attempts to talk to her, about anything or nothing at all.

He remembers, most of all, the look on her face when he told her that he would be away, and she would be in the care of another. Not worry, not fear for her son, not even fear for his failure.

Relief.

If he does not return to her, then she will die. But must he hurry back so soon, when his presence hurts her so much that the only way he can comfort her in her illness is by leaving?

“Poor thing,” the man murmurs to him. Martin isn’t sure when he came back. Perhaps he never left at all. “Poor, brave thing. So much love, and it brings you nothing but pain. I can help you, if you like.”

“I can handle pain,” Martin replies. The mists stir before his face—no. The mists are coming out of him, flowing from his lips like his breath in winter. “I can bear it—”

“Yes, I’m sure you can.” The man’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. Even though layers of cloth, his hand is cold enough that it sinks into Martin’s bones. “But what about everyone else?”

“I have to save her,” Martin says. His voice trembles in the chill, weak and thin. “I have to go home.”

“You will. Of course you will.” The hand slides down, from his shoulder to his chest, and takes the cold with it. “There we are. Now you can save her, and you can find your way home.”

By the time Martin stumbles back out of the mists, his heart sits frozen in his chest. Each beat is heavy and sluggish, as cold and sharp as crystal as it pumps ice water through his veins.

* * *

He skirts the witch’s woods on the way home. Shame sits as heavy in his chest as his heart does—he failed to follow simple instructions, and now he’s left racing home as he slowly freezes to death in his own skin. It might kill him, but the least he can do is save his mother before it can. The only path left before him leads to home, and to Annabelle.

When he arrives, the spider welcomes him with an enigmatic smile. She bids him warm himself before her fire, lips curling in faint amusement as if she knows that the fire can do nothing for him. When Martin passes his hands too close to the flames, desperate for even the memory of respite, he finds that the fire can still burn him even if it can’t warm him.

“What do you need these for?” he asks through teeth gritted to keep them from chattering. Annabelle accepts each item with eager eyes, slender hands running through the thread, uncorking the Dark water to inspect it, swirling the trapped mist like fine wine. “Jon—the witch said his threads don’t heal.”

“Hm? Oh.” Annabelle’s smile turns indulgent. “These won’t cure your mother. They’re merely payment.” She places a flask of her own before him. “A spoonful of this in her tea every morning, and she’ll be right as rain by the end of the month.”

Martin takes it with trembling hands, eyeing the syrupy liquid inside with unease. After such a long journey, it feels strange that the answer to his mother’s ills should be handed over like an afterthought.

“Was there something else?” she asks.

“What happened to me in the mists?”

“Ah, that.” Before he can think to protest, she presses her hand to his chest and feels its cold beating. “Your heart is frozen. Eventually, the rest of you will freeze with it. Terribly unfortunate, but it is a risk when one wanders into the heart of the Forsaken.”

“Do you know how to stop it?” Martin asks. Even without her current illness, his mother is not a strong woman. She needs help, and care, and he can’t give it to her or pay for it if he’s dead.

“There are a number of things,” Annabelle tells him. “You may give in to the curse, break the curse, or get around the curse.”

“I can’t just _die_.”

“That’s not the only way to give in,” she tells him. “You can go back to the southern shore and return to the Forsaken. You’ll wander in the mists forever, but the cold won’t kill you, at least.”

Martin shakes his head. “How do I break the curse?”

“Oh, well that one is simple, I suppose.”

“If you’re about to tell me that a kiss of true love will fix it—”

Annabelle laughs. “Not at all! That would be far too easy.” She opens all eight of her eyes. “You’re on the right track, though. True love can break many curses, and the curse of the Forsaken is one of them. But anyone can give a kiss. Now, _tears_ , on the other hand—that’s something else entirely.”

“I have to make someone cry?” Martin asks, dismayed. “For me?”

Annabelle nods. “Your heart can only be thawed by tears shed for love,” she says. “So I would suggest hurrying home to your mother, before it’s too late for either of you.”

Martin runs the rest of the way home, trembling with every step. It’s a battle just to keep from dropping the flask entirely. The sun is beginning to sink when he finally reaches the house where he grew up.

Hannah greets him warmly at the door, fussing briefly over his icy hands and shivering. Martin thanks her with a smile stiff from the cold, and tries not to rush to his mother’s room—his heavy steps have always hurt her ears.

“I’m home,” he says, when he finally sees her again. She has grown paler and thinner in his absence, but the fierceness has not left her face. “I brought medicine. It’ll make you better—”

“You’ve let the cold in,” she complains, drawing her blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Just give it to Hannah.”

He hears the dismissal in her tone, and normally he would heed it, but now his own heart is slowly killing him and his mother is the only one who can help. “There’s more,” he says. “I had to travel a long way to get it, and—something happened. Please, Mum. I need your help.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” she sighs. “What did you get yourself into now?”

“Just listen, and I’ll explain.” And so he tells her of his journey, of the items that Annabelle demanded as payment. He tells her of the kind, grieving witch he met, and his perilous walk through the Shrouded Wood, and the distant sea to the south. He tells her of the man he met in the freezing mists, and the heart that sits frozen in his chest.

He lays his plight before him, open and pleading, and she sits before him dry-eyed through it all.

“And what do you want from me?” she asks when he’s done.

“I-I was told that the only thing that can thaw it are tears—”

“Then you shouldn’t have much trouble with it, should you?” she says. “You’ve done plenty of crying in the past.”

“But—”

“Haven’t I given enough?” she asks him wearily. “I ruined my health just having you, and I’ve spent so many years raising you alone. I cried all my tears when your father left. And now you want _more?_ ”

“I—but if I’m to care for _you_ —”

“I’ve been getting along fine while you were gone,” she assures him. “Hannah has been very kind.”

“But—” The word rushes from his lips, and with it, a cloud of ice-cold mist. Martin covers his mouth hastily, but it’s too late. His mother sees, and the look of horror and revulsion on her face burns itself into his memory.

Martin returns to Annabelle’s door with trembling hands and blue lips, and she receives him with pity in her eyes.

“There is one thing I can do,” she tells him, as he sits in her parlor and breathes clouds of mist that crystallize into droplets. “Unless you’d rather return to the Forsaken.”

The option is tempting. In the past, Martin has often wished that he could simply disappear, and the desire is stronger now than ever before. He has overstayed his welcome in his mother’s home, and she would be happier in the care of neighbors than in his.

But someone must support her, and Martin cannot trust the kindness of neighbors to provide for her for the rest of his life. That is his burden to bear, even if he must do it from afar. He owes that much to her; if he hadn’t been born, then perhaps she would be vivacious and happy now.

“I can’t go back,” he says, as another cloud of breath falls like rain.

“Very well.” Annabelle places one hand against his chest. The other holds a knife, its edge keen enough to split a hair down its length. “I won’t take it from you—I have no use for a frozen heart, so you can do as you like with it.”

“What will happen to me?” Martin asks. He thinks he ought to feel afraid, but he doesn’t. Maybe he can’t anymore.

“You will live,” she replies. “You’ll never be warm without it, but you won’t freeze, either. And until you put it back, you’ll never feel love again.”

“That’s not much of a loss,” Martin whispers. He loved his father, and his father left. He loves his mother, and it’s brought her nothing but pain and hardship. His love is a curse. “I don’t need to love. I just need to be useful.”

“Very well,” Annabelle says, before she cuts his heart from his chest.

* * *

He finds himself in the witch’s woods again.

He has nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and a box, tightly locked and cold to the touch. It is a heavy burden to bear, but it is his.

When Jon answers the door, he looks much the same as before. His hair has grown out, nearly long enough to cover his ears, but other than that he’s hardly different now than the day Martin met him on the riverbank. The relief on his face fades quickly, as Martin had thought it would. He knows that he makes a sorry sight these days, and it stands to reason that a witch could look at him once and see that he is incomplete.

But Jon tolerates his presence, enough to invite him in and offer polite refreshments. Martin is grateful for it, he thinks. At the very least, he knows he should be grateful, so he will be grateful. Not everyone is nearly as forgiving of his intrusion.

Over tea, Jon gently draws his story from him, like a thread teased from wool. “I suppose it’s my own fault,” Martin says after he finishes. “My mother gave so much love just bearing me and raising me. Of course she couldn’t pull me from the Forsaken. It was selfish to ask.”

Jon makes a quiet noise of disapproval—which is fair. Mum always hated it when he stated the obvious, too.

“Is there anything I can do?” Jon asks.

“No,” Martin assures him. “Not about that, anyway. But—I’ve been trying to find work, and it’s been difficult. Do you know of anyone in the town who might hire me? I’m really open to anything.”

Jon grimaces slightly, and Martin almost withdraws the request before he replies, “I’m not very well known, there,” he says. “And my word won’t open any doors for you, I’m sorry to say. They aren’t fond of spiders.”

“I see,” says Martin. “Well, thank you anyway.”

“But,” Jon continues. “I suppose I could—I could use your help with something.”

“Of course,” Martin replies easily.

“I make thread,” says Jon. “I mean, obviously. And I have a garden. And with both, I always produce more than I need. I’d sell it in town, but… well. As I said. They aren’t fond of spiders.”

“I could do it, if that’s what you’re asking,” Martin offers. “Though, I’m not sure they’ll be fond of me, either.”

“I think you sell yourself short,” says Jon, because that’s the polite thing to say.

“We’ll see,” Martin replies, unwilling to argue. “I’d be happy to help you. It’s the least I can do, after you’ve been so kind.”

Jon meets his eyes. He doesn’t do that very often, perhaps because his eyes are a spider’s eyes. Annabelle never seemed to have such reservations, which is a shame. Jon’s eyes are far kinder than hers.

The witch is fortunate that Martin’s heart sits frozen in a box, instead of in his chest where it used to be. Because when Jon smiles at him, Martin thinks that he might love him if he could, and his love has only ever brought people pain. But, as he told Annabelle, he doesn’t need to love, only to be useful.

He has been a dutiful son all his life. Perhaps if he is careful not to overstay his welcome, he can be a dutiful friend as well.


End file.
